


If This House Could Talk

by LouieRambles



Series: Shadows of the Past [1]
Category: Noblesse (Manhwa)
Genre: Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-01-05 15:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21210596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LouieRambles/pseuds/LouieRambles
Summary: Oh, the tales it would tell...





	1. Raizel House - Part 1

Raizel took a deep breath as he watched the neighbours' children playing in their yards. He watched a father pulling into his driveway and get out of the car, a big grin on his face. The children abandoned their play and ran up to him, joy on their faces. 

As he sat there in his brother's study, fidgeting in the large chair in front of the desk, watching how happy that other family was, Raizel wondered what he'd gone wrong. Wondered what he'd done, to make his brother act so...unbrotherly towards him.

He bit his lower lip, glancing up at what he could see of the door for a few seconds. Seconds that he counted, using the noisy ticking of the ornate grandfather clock that his brother had bought in Seychelles last summer. When it stayed firmly closed, he returned his gaze to the window, trying his hardest to not look at the overly large room that he was in.

The father was tossing one of his eldest daughter into the air while the twins danced around his feet, playing a game that Raizel couldn't recognise.

Once upon a time, he might have acted like those children, he thought. Once upon a time, he might have had parents who had loved him, and held him gently while laughing at his antics, just like that father outside was doing. Once upon a time, he and is brother might have been more than actors, playing their parts in their very own dysfunctional mockery of a happy family.

But that was once upon a time. 

He didn't have parents anymore. And he and his brother were the furthest thing from a happy family.

Raizel narrowed his eyes at the scene outside, something akin to jealousy bubbling up in his chest. Then the door opened with a soft shushing sound as it dragged across the carpet, and the feeling was gone, like it had never been there in the first place. Just like all his other feelings did, whenever Caul was around.

"Raizel," his brother said, his dress shoes making scuffing noises on the wooden floors as he walked over to the spiraling staircase. His feet still made dragging noises as he descended, and Raizel felt hope. 

Had Caul had a hard day at the office then? Then maybe he would be too tired to torment him?

"Have you finished your reading?" His brother stepped onto the carpet, and the scuffing noises faded, leaving Raizel unaware of where his brother was, unless he turned around. But Caul didn't like it when he tracked him with his eyes.

So instead, he strained his ears for a sound. Any sound other than the sound of that clock ticking, mocking him, chanting.

_Tick._

_Tock._

_Tick._

_Tock._

_Tick._

_Tock._

_Tick._

_Tock._

_Be-_

_Hind._

_You._

_Be-_

_Hind._

_You._

Raizel listened, but no sound came. Nothing to tell him whether his brother was right behind him, or still over at the base of the stairs. He began to hope again, that his brother had been too tired, and had just decided to leave him alone for the rest of the day. But then a hand touched the top of his head and he jumped, yelping in fear. Fear of what had just touched him. Fear of the pain to come. 

He closed his eyes as he trembled, worried about what his brother would to to him, and what his punishment would be for that sound. But Caul just laughed, most likely amused by Raizel's fear. This time. 

Caul removed his hand from Raizel's hair as he walked around his desk. "Jumpy, aren't we, little brother?"

He nodded silently, looking anywhere but at his brother's face. He didn't keep it up for long though, knowing how much his brother hated it when he got 'fidgety like that'. His gaze settled on the papers atop the desk, and he resolved to keep it there, no matter what happened.

"Well don't be afraid, it's only you and I in this room, little brother." The chair on the other side of the desk creaked, and Caul's hands came into his line of vision. "Now, I believe I asked you a question, Raizel. Did you, or did you not finish your reading?"

Raizel swallowed, and looked away from his brother's hands as he shook his head slightly. "No, Caul."

Caul made a tutting noise. "That won't do, little brother," he scolded. His hands left the desk as he got up, making Raizel's heart beat faster.

The clock chimed, and his brother closed the curtains, closing out the rest of the world.

* * *

Raizel didn't know when it began, but he was never alone in the chateau anymore. 

There was always someone, something, following him. It lay underneath the chairs and beds whenever he rested atop them. It lounged in the shadows, just at the edge of his peripheral vision when he walked down the wide, straight corridors, always gone whenever he turned his head to get a better look at it. And it lurked in the corners of his brother's study, whenever he and Caul were occupying it.

His brother had noticed it as well, Raizel knew. He'd caught him glaring at the shadows in the dining room on more than one occasion, and he'd stopped calling him into the study as often.

It was a double edged blade, that served to both bless and curse him. 

Because Caul could no longer summon him into the study that Raizel hated so much, his brother would summon him to his rooms. Or, on the rare occasion, he would enter his room. But, because of the presence, their sessions never lasted for as long as they would have, before.

It left him with more time to himself. Time that he used to stare out the windows, watching what he could never have. What he wasn't sure that he even wanted, anymore.

He found himself gravitating back to that wretched study. Back to that room with the dourly clock that seemed to exist, only to make him count the seconds of his miserable existence. Back to that window, where he watched the family of six as they played and frolicked and laughed outside, showcasing their lives to the world.

At twelve, Raizel no longer envied the next door neighbours as he had at eight. Because if his and his brother's happiness was a farce, then who was to say that the husband next door didn't treat his children in the same way that Caul did him? And, if that were the case, then why did it matter what his elder brother did to him?

So he simply watched, leaning against his brother's desk as he waited, knowing that his brother would eventually come. That his brother would come, shutting out his view of the other family's show.

The clock chimed, and the study door creaked open. And the shadows in the corner of the room moved.

* * *

Ghosting through the walls of the chateau, Raizel marvelled. And waited.

Marvelled, because Caul had been gone for a blessed three weeks, without a single word said to him.

Waited, because Caul would come back. He always did. He'd left before, for longer periods, but he'd always come back. Had always come back to take him into the study. Had always come back to continue his fun. To force Raizel to count the seconds, always marked by the sounds from that execrable clock.

_Tick._

_Tock._

He could hear it now, through the thick mahogany door. 

_Tick._

_Tock._

_Tick._

_Tock._

The urge to grit his teeth bubbled up within him and, for the first time in a long time, he felt the urge to be loud. To be brash. To be violent. To take his anger out on something.

_Tick._

_Tock._

_Tick._

_Tock._

His body jerked without his permission, and he followed. Lifting his eyes alongside his fist, he prepared to throw a punch that he had no idea how to execute. 

_Tick._

_Tock._

_Tick._

_Tock._

_Tick._

_Tock._

_Tick._

_Tock._

The sight of another's fist being raised towards him had Raizel yelping, ducking to avoid the pain. He dropped to his knees, arms flying up to shield his head.

His forearms took the brunt of the blow, causing him to cry out. Another blow broke something in his left arm and it fell away, useless. He curled in on himself, struggling to shield himself from the abuse.

Through it all, Caul's mocking voice rang out. Taunting him. Teasing him. Berating him. Burying him under the weight of so many hate-filled words, that Raizel felt that they had to be true.

_"What's the matter, little brother?"_ Caul raged, stomping in his broken arm. _"Where's all your bravado gone? I thought that you were supposed to be **fighting me back**?!"_

He kicked Raizel in his abdomen, forcing him into his back. He gasped, staring up at the chandelier. The crystals adorning it winkled in the dim light of the fading light, dimmed by the thick, dark curtains. To his pain addled mind, it looked like hundreds of red eyes blinking at him.

_"Then **fight** me, you cowardly little **rat**!"_

Cold, cold hands snaked around his neck as a knee was dropped on his unbroken arm , pinning it in place.

_"You're a little ingrate, you know that?" _The hands began squeezing as Caul leaned in closer, hissing into his ear. _"I decide to take care of your sorry ass after Mom and Dad died, when nobody else would have wanted you, and **this **is how you repay me!? I ought to end you right here!"_

Raizel found himself choking, scrabbling, clawing at his brother's hands, trying to draw a breath, to say what he knew his brother wanted to hear, what would stop him from killing him...

_Tick._

_Tock._

_Click._

The clock chimed obnoxiously, rudely jerking him back to himself. He planted harshly as he sat up, taking in the deep red walls and curving brown shelves and furniture that made up the room, accented by splotches of black upholstery. Directly in front of him stood a floor length gilded mirror - one of his brother's more recent acquisitions. One of his more recent trophies.

_The study,_ his mind supplied. He'd wandered into the study unknowingly. 

Swallowing around the dryness in his throat, he stood on shaky legs and made his way over to Caul's desk. His treacherous body kept leading him forward, past the desk and over to window. 

At one point, the window had been large. Large enough that even if Caul stood on the windowsill, his heat wouldn't be able to reach the top of the window. But, after he'd smashed a porcelain vase into his brother's head in a fit of rage, Caul had replaced it. Just in case he got any 'ideas' about throwing someone out of the window.

It was this same window that Raizel's feet had led him to.

He put his hand on the glass and looked down, down at the house directly across from theirs. It had been empty for a few years, ever since he had attacked his brother.

So now, he simply stared at the empty house and marveled. Marveled at how the once beautiful house succumbed to the mercies of the weather. At how it faded, dying almost as slowly as he had, under the erosive nature of his brother.

* * *

Caul never came back.

The police had found him, decaying and hanging from the rotting rafters of an abandoned warehouse, a few streets away from the company offices.

A fitting end for a well-deserving person, Caul's employees had said, in the corners of the rooms after the police officers that had delivered the news and left. Someone had finally decided to put an end to his atrocities.

Because there was no way that Caul, arrogant, manipulative, and spiteful Caul, would ever take his own life.

Raizel couldn't find it within himself to care, either way. 

Caul was gone, but he didn't feel relieved, like he thought that he would. He just felt numb.

* * *

Two days after sealing Caul's body inside the family crypt, a benevolent, but unseen benefactor contacted Raizel and, suddenly, he had a new guardian to live with, and a new set of rules to obey.

The first was that he would no longer be homeschooled, and that he would have to attend classes every day. It was a strange experience, but one that he could say he enjoyed. He had even managed to gain a friend.

Muzaka was a loud, uncouth and brash youth. In fact, everything that Caul had hated in other persons, Muzaka was it. 

The other teen had even come over a few times since Raizel's benefactor had taken over. 

One morning after such a visit, he had found a harshly scrawled, but gently worded request from his benefactor, slipped under his bedroom door. It simply read: 'NOT WITHOUT WARNING, AND NEVER AGAIN AT NIGHTS PLEASE!!'

Which led Raizel to the next rule. He had to be home before nightfall, without exception. 

Not that Raizel had ever had anywhere to be, once night had come. But he wouldn't tell his benefactor that. He'd learnt from Caul that the more you let others know about you, the more control that they had over you. And after he'd learnt of his brother's death, he promised himself that no one would control him again. Not even his supposedly kind benefactor. 

Perhaps, he thought, that was the reason he found himself at the door of Caul's study, prepared to break that final rule, the one that his benefactor had stressed the most in all of his notes.

The study was off limits to all. Raizel himself had been specifically singled out by this decree, and it had chafed him to no end. No one was going to control him.

Taking a deep breath, he took hold of the old-fashioned knob and pushed. 

The elegant door, which had once opened almost silently now created and shuddered as it mournfully shuffled over the musty carpet. Less than a quarter of the way through the course of its swing, the door stuck fast, refusing to move another inch.

Without thinking about it, Raizel threw all of his meagre weight against the only barrier between him and some of his more painful memories. 

For a few, tense seconds, nothing happened. But then the door slipped a few inches. Those few inches were his only warning before he was sent careening, arms flailing gracelessly as he fell headfirst into the room.

The carpet let off a waft of something foul-smelling when he collided with it. It left him coated with a slick substance and he knew without having to open his eyes that his clothing was done for. Knew that no amount of furious scrubbing, nor dousing with bleach would save them from...whatever this thing was.

More than that, he knew that the study did not look the same as he remembered it.

That thought alone was enough to make him tremble. To stop him from opening his eyes. Tears welled up behind his closed lids.

The past three months and twenty-seven days had been surreal. Raizel hadn't needed the servants' gossip to make him notice that. Hadn't needed the awed gazes and hushed whispers of his classmates to tell him how fairytale-like his life appeared to be.

And he hadn't needed to watch a movie to make him realise that the other shoe would soon fall. That the clock would strike midnight, turning his carriage back into a pumpkin, and his horses and foot men would go back to being lizards and mice. He would open his eyes and his brother would be sitting at his desk, looking up and smiling as he shattered Raizel's dreams.

That moment was now. He squeezed his eyes even tighter.

He wanted to change his mind. He wanted to get up and just walk away. To go back to his room and stare out his window until the early hours of the morning. Then he'd go to school and listen to Muzaka's rambling. 

And he'd do as his benefactor had said. He'd never think about this wretched room again.

But he couldn't go back. He had disobeyed Bluebeard and had used the one key that he was never supposed to use. Pandora's box had been opened, and it couldn't be closed again.

He took a steadying breath, opened his eyes and came face to face with a ghost.


	2. Raizel's House - Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, the next chapter won't come a year later.

Raizel sat with his back against the closed door, staring at the ruins of his brother's study. Caul's grandfather clock stared back at him, forlorn and disgrace etched into its roman numerals. Its hands, which must have stopped weeks ago, hung in as perilous a frown a clock could wear. It, much like the room below, was dead.

Just like his brother.

His breath caught in his chest, but no tears came. He'd cried an impossible amount earlier, when he'd finally seen what remained of his brother's beloved space, in the aftermath of the hurricane of time.

Books had been torn from their shelves and strewn across the floors, while the shelves themselves lay in pieces. Beneath it all, the moldy scraps of a once lavish carpeting peered through, like a body beneath the rubble. 

The crystal chandelier, his brother's pride and joy, was in pieces barely large enough to be called shards. And his brother's desk.

Raizel wasn't certain that some of the pieces of wood on the floor weren't part of what was once the desk.

Caul would be furious, if he saw the state of disrepair that the room had fallen into.

A grim chuckle slipped past his lips. Then another, followed by yet another. Soon, he was laughing uncontrollably, till tears began to slip down his cheeks. He laughed and cried, until there were only tears, and he was back to sobbing uncontrollably again.

As he knelt there, pounding his bruised fists against the filthy, moldy carpets, Raizel found that he had something else to laugh at.

His brother, the worst tyrant that he had ever known - the only tyrant that he knew - was dead. The only family that he'd had was gone, and the only tears that he had shed so far were tears of relief. Where was his grief? His lamentation, his bereavement, his tears of sorrow?

When their parents had died, Caul had laughed, and Raizel had thought him a monster for it. As he got older, he understood through his studies that it took a particular level of sociopathy to be able to inflict such pain, while never feeling it for oneself. 

He had noted that his brother had most certainly carried that level of sociopathy. 

Of psychopathy. 

And now here he was, laughing and just being happy that his brother was gone. He was a monster, just like his brother. Just like Caul had always told him he was.

Now Caul was gone, and with him, the only monster that would put up with him.

A single tear rolled down his cheek and Raizel gasped. His chest, overworked from his hysterical laughter, ached terribly. But, despite himself, despite his desire to shed tears, he didn't want to cry. 

Or did he? It was all so confusing and just-

"I'm losing my mind." His voice warbled, teetering on the edge of what he imagined insanity sounded like. "That's all there is to it." He pressed his back up against the door and propped his left arm atop his raised knee. His right hand wormed its way into his hair and he tugged, relishing the pain in a way that only few could appreciate. "That's all there is to it."

"The word 'grieving' seems a more appropriate description to me."

At the sound of the voice, Raizel gave a start, scrabbling to his feet, even as his shoes slicked and slid in the mold. Then he was falling backwards, sliding against the shredded surface of the door. He landed on his rear, legs splayed in front of him.

It may have been a disgraceful display, but...

Raizel somehow managed to swallow past the lump of terror in his throat without choking.

The floating pair of red eyes simply bored into him, the only solid thing in the mass of black that encroached on his vision.

When Raizel woke next, he found himself in his bed, with no memory of taking himself there. He slipped out of bed, taking note of his pajamas, and vowed to never again watch movies with Muzaka.

Walking barefooted down the corridors, he most certainly did not even glance at the study door.

* * *

Raizel kept his back to his room as he closed his bedroom door. He leaned his head against the mahogany paneling and resolutely refused to turn around. There was a monster, an honest-to-goodness, straight-out-of-the-movies monster standing behind him, in the center of his room. 

"Raizel," the monster growled, "we need to talk." 

He shook his head slowly. 

"You've been breaking one of my rules, every single day, for this past week." The monster shifted, somewhere behind him. Raizel could almost **_feel_ **its hot breath, going down the back of his neck. "You've never been one to break the rules before, boy."

That was before he'd become aware that he'd traded the devil that he'd known, for a different one.

"There's a reason I gave you those rules, Raizel." 

"Aren't they there because you're trying to lure me into a false sense of security?" he blurted, unable to hold his tongue.

"Lure you into a false sense of security for what?" The monster was right behind him now, hands raised, poised to deliver a killing blow.

"Aren't you a monster?" Raizel sunk his teeth into his tongue as soon as the words were past his lips, lest it betray him any further and upset the creature behind him. 

An oppressive silence fell over the room. It hung so heavy, so cloying that his shoulders were weighed down by the magnanimity of it. His lungs were filled to capacity and just about ready to burst.

Raizel's lips parted of their own accord and a raspy breath escaped him. That single action seemed to be some sort of trigger, because the room got brighter, and Raizel could breathe easier.

"Don't be late again, Raizel," the monster growled, its voice strangely faint. "I won't be able to guarantee your safety if you are." Then, with the sound of heavy drapes being whipped about in a storm, the creature was gone, out the window that Raizel knew he hadn't opened. The window that he could never recall opening, but always closed when he got up in the morning.

Wordlessly, he turned around, walked over to the heavy window and slammed it shut. His fingers trembled as he fought against the stubbornness of the ancient, neglected latch. They were a painful sort of numb by the time he'd managed to achieve his goal, but it was worth it.

* * *

The window was open again, the next morning. 

The window was open, and the dresser that Raizel had shoved and tugged and pushed until it sat in front of his door last night hadn't been moved an inch.

Taking a deep breath, Raizel grabbed his book bag and an armful of clothes.

* * *

Muzaka raised a bushy brow when he saw Raizel sitting on the doorstep of his side of the duplex, in the dim light of the pre-dawn.

"People usually hold sleepovers at night, y'know," the brash boy yawned. Still, he bent at the waist and picked up Raizel's luggage. "If you come in now, I can convince my old man that I snuck ya in last night."

That gave him pause. 

It was ludicrous, to think that Muzaka did not have parents. But, he had never heard him mention his parents.

Had he left behind one beast, only to run afoul of another? 

But, he left now, where would he go? Who else would be able to bear his presence long enough to shelter him from the demon in his home?

Who else would _be able_ to shelter him?

Raizel raised his eyes and let them focus on Muzaka's increasingly worried, searching face.

Moreover, was he putting his only friend at risk of the wrath of a monster?

Caul's voice, which had made itself known as Raizel had forced himself through his bedroom window, had mercilessly taunted him as he picked his bruised body off the grass after he had fallen from the roof of the porch below his window. It had grown in intensity as he made his escape across town towards Muzaka's home. Now, after having fallen dormant for a blessed few minutes, Caul returned to life.

He stroked Raizel's cheeks, chuckling in that wretched sadistic tone, voice dripping with malice and poison. 

_"Oh, my sweet little brother, you brought this on yourself." _Hishands quittheir mockery of a caress, turning instead to reaching for Muzaka. To drawing him closer. "_You went and had me killed by your new protector, and now you seek a new dog to do your bidding."_

Muzaka stepped forward, brows furrowed, but not a trace of anger in his face. "Y'kay Raizel?"

Caul gave a full, throaty laugh at that, curling an arm around Muzaka's shoulders. _"Yes, little brother, are you 'okay' with the thought that you'll be leading death to your new friend's doorstep?_

Hisbrother was correct. 

Caul was correct, and Raizel was a fool for believing that this was possibly a good idea.

He looked away from his brother's form, and focused on Muzaka.

There was anger in Muzaka's face now. It roiled just beneath the surface, turning his friend's face red. 

The same red that was usually the precursor to one of Caul's violent acts. Raizel swallowed, muscles tensing as he readied himself for the feel of a blow. 

_"Only because you deserve it, my dear, sweet Raizel."_

One, two - he began to count the seconds as they ticked away.

One, two, three, four.

_Tick._

_Tock._

_Tick._

_Tock._

_Tick._

_Tock._

_**Click**._

"If I ever see whoever it was that has ya shaken up like this, I'm gonna put my fist in their face." Muzaka's voice, despite brimming with anger, held no water in the face of his gentle grip on Raizel's arm. He pulled him forward, holding him as if he were porcelain. 

Caul, who'd begun chuckling in his cold, calculated manner, fell silent.

Raizel blinked, but the stinging in his eyes refused to lessen. He blinked again, and his vision blurred.

"Wait, Raizel, y-you're crying." Muzaka's grip tightened slightly as his voice rose an octave. "Shit, no, I...I didn't mean it! I won't punch 'em, I swear on my old man's grave!"

"Boy, what did I tell you about killing me before my time!"

Muzaka cupped Raizel's cheek with one hand, using his thumb to wipe the tears from one of his eyes. Now, Raizel could see the fond grimace on his friend's face. "Your time came when the dinosaurs died, ya ancient relic!" 

"You're not too big for me to turn you over my knee, Muzaka S. Carr!"

Raizel froze when Muzaka snorted in amusement. To do that in the face of one of Caul's tirades would have earned him a smarting cheek, at the very least. He would have had to grovel, at this point.

But Muzaka was staring at him now, and-

"Made ya laugh," he chuckled, using his other hand to wipe the rest of Raizel's tears. Then he brought their foreheads together. "Now quit crying before my dad sees ya and thinks I made it happen."

Oh? Raizel touched part of his cheek that wasn't completely covered by Muzaka's rough palm, and felt the slight bunching of muscle. The laughter had been his.

He'd almost forgotten that he knew how.

"Yeah, ya dingus," Muzaka insulted him, smiling. 

It didn't go through him, like one of Caul's insults would have, burning red and hot as it stabbed through his heart. Instead, it settled, soft and warm, keeping the chill of the early morning out.

"You laughed. Now let's go inside."

_"He won't be this friendly forever, little brother."_

* * *

Muzaka lay back on the floor, staring up at his ceiling, long after his window had been eased open. 

The neighbours were fighting again, but that was an everyday occurrence. Shadowy masses from hell dragging themselves out from under his bed to swear undying loyalty to the person lying on his bed, on the other hand, was not.

That was something straight out of a movie.

He eased himself into a sitting position and glanced over at Raizel. The poor guy had hardly even slept last night.

He probably wouldn't have slept tonight either, if his dad hadn't slipped a bit of whiskey into that cup of tea that he'd given to Raizel. 

Yeah...

Raizel was going to have a bitch of a headache, come morning.

Still...

He eased himself onto his knees and crawled forward, rising to rest his elbows on the bed. He poked his friend's cheek. Yep, he was still fast asleep.

Muzaka bit his lip.

Raizel was still thrown off by whatever it was that had made him decide to spend a few days. He didn't need to know that there was some sort of monster underneath Muzaka's bed, making it its business to ensure that both of them caught a cold because of that open window.

A cricket sounded, closer to his ear than any of them had been before, and Muzaka scowled.

That was why civilized people in this neighborhood kept their windows closed at night. 

"Damned monster better start paying rent, if it's gonna be leaving windows open," he grumbled, forcing his tired legs to lift him from his crouch and over to the window. "Leaving the window open like that. Does it help chase the fricking bugs out after it lets 'em in? Does it help to pay for the heating in this crapshot place? Must've been raised on a farm..."


End file.
